Please don’t stop writing.
Aaron
August 9—2:52 a.m.
Aaron,
I am envious of the light in your world and all the beautiful things it allows you to see. Living in darkness changes you. The dark feels like a presence, like a solid, solemn thing that makes you speak in whispers. It’s always there, covering you. Sometimes I like that feeling of being hidden. You can make faces at people or flip them the bird without them knowing.
But it drives me crazy not knowing what is in the shadows. There is enough light to see, but only faintly. How do I know what I’m actually eating? You said your bird meat was blue. I have no idea of what colors I am eating. Remember that childhood game where you close your eyes and someone puts an object in your hand and you have to guess what it is? I got it wrong so many times.
I examine things by the light of the computer screen. I don’t see any changes in my body but there are no mirrors here. I look into the black of the screen to see the reflection of my face. I don’t notice any difference. Some of the women cry about not having make-up, but what is the point of wearing make-up in the dark?
I run my fingers over everything like I’m Helen Keller. I thought it was my newly enhanced sense of touch that made the walls and floor feel like they were alive, but after what you’ve told me about the breathing walls, I’m beginning to think there is a life force inhabiting them. The walls feel as soft and fuzzy as a young girl’s skin. The floor is warm at times and cool at others. Yet the room temperature never seems to change.
I’ve heard burps and farts that seem to emanate from the air. We usually end up blaming them on Bradley, LOL. Did I ever tell you the Balloon Heads make a sound that sounds like a cricket but throatier? That’s the only noise they ever make. I wish Richard Widmark was here to throw them down the stairs in their wheelchairs. Their bodies are like the bodies of ventriloquist dummies. The huge heads are the only part of them that seems alive.
I like how my white skin seems to glow in the darkness, but I can’t help but think they are keeping it dark to hide some terrible secret. My eyes are getting good at making out things in shadows. It sounds silly, but sometimes, I imagine I’m a cat, hunting in the night. Unfortunately, I’m not a good “mouser.”
Sounds are haunting when you can’t see where they’re coming from. I imagine that all the words spoken here echo, but they don’t. I know they don’t, but the darkness makes it seem like they do.
If I stepped out of this place and went back into your world, Aaron, I’d be “blinded by the light” like they sang in that old song. I think that was Manfred Mann’s Earth Band? Why were they called Earth Band? We’d naturally assume they’re from planet Earth. Unless it means they were of the soil. Sometimes I feel I am underneath the earth somewhere. It’s possible. And then how would you ever find me?
It would explain the absence of light here.
YU (yours underground),
Joy
August 10—10:16 a.m.
Joy,
I’m in Melissa Vacro’s house. Do you remember her? The middle-aged woman who lived by herself down the block from us? She pretty much kept to herself, and had a teenage son? It’s one of the few houses in our neighborhood that hasn’t become uninhabitable. Our house has long since turned into a pile of mulch. (And it just started sprouting flowers! Big red ones with huge petals.)
Melissa’s house is pretty much as she left it. It’s not often that you see real houses anymore. Everything has been altered so drastically; hardly anything is the way you remember it. But it’s all here: her furniture, the photographs on the wall, the other signs that someone once lived here. It’s like some shrine or museum left behind—a pocket of proof that humans once lived here.
I can’t deny that I immediately started snooping around. Not so much because I had to know everything these people did, but more that it gave me something to do. Something to explore. There hasn’t been much in the way of missions since I visited Davey for the last time.
I found some food and bottled water at least. It’s so strange, the level of change that’s happened. Even the labels of cans look strange and undecipherable. I never know what I’ll find when I open one up. Much of the food, I don’t recognize. The bottled water looks normal enough, though.
There are tons of wild plants now that appear to be edible, but I can never be sure. I try to avoid those kinds of things as much as possible, and so far I’ve been pretty good at scavenging food. This house has working plumbing (and electricity, naturally), but the water is a light shade of green. It’s clear the tsunami affected the reservoir (and why wouldn’t it?). So I’m not sure if the tap water is even safe anymore. I guess I’d have to boil it beforehand, if I wanted to use it for cooking or anything.
There was some money in one of the bedrooms upstairs, but as you can guess, money is pretty meaningless at this point. Most of the trappings of our former existence are pretty irrelevant now.
The biggest luxury is that there are actual beds to sleep on!
I can still tune in radio stations occasionally. There are few still on the air, but it sounds like things were a lot worse than originally projected. A lot more dead. Which makes sense, because I’ve been wandering around and haven’t seen much in the way of other people. It’s not completely deserted, but it’s not teeming with people around here, either.
I couldn’t get the cable to work, though. In the old days, you could still get channels on the television without a hook-up, but now it’s just a lot of static.
Did I say the beds were the biggest luxury? It might be a toss-up. This place has a functioning bathroom as well. A shower that has hot water, and a toilet that works. You do not realize the importance of those kinds of things until you go without them awhile. The water from the shower comes in various shades of green, but I can’t worry about everything anymore. It would drive me crazy to get too caught up in it.
I think I’ll stay here for a few days. It’s not like I have any real responsibilities these days. And I can explore some more when I need something to do. Did I tell you she has a whole bookcase full of books, too? And some of them actually look worth reading.
And I’m so sick of moving around all the time.
I wish you were here.
Aaron
August 11—3:32 a.m.
Aaron,
I’m glad you’re in a safe, comfortable place. It must be nice to sleep in a bed. Heck, it must be nice to sleep. We here in the Dark Passage don’t. Straw mats are taken out of the supply closet at ten o’clock every night and we put them down on the ground and lie on them with our eyes wide open. My head gets this numb feeling, like when the dentist gives you Novocaine. I’m conscious, but I feel my thoughts slowing.
If I think of a cat, for instance, I would see a close-up of fur in my mind’s eye and wonder what it was, then realize it was fur, then wonder whose fur. Then maybe see a cat’s paw, the torso, the neck, the head, the triangular ears, and then think, “This is a cat.” It takes about an hour to reach that point and then progress painstakingly to whatever thought I had about the cat. It is almost like being drugged-out, but we are not given drugs. It is the Balloon Heads controlling our minds. If they were not so mentally powerful, they would have died weeks ago.
I’ve tried to talk to the Balloon Heads since I found out who they are, or rather, used to be. Because they’re not those people anymore. The only thing they have in common with their former selves is that they were in charge then and they are in charge now. Rafe Dinkle used to be fond of puns and bad jokes so I tried some on him and didn’t get a flicker of response.
Before I walked away from him, I said, “I don’t know why you’re ignoring me. You must have gotten a swelled head since the tsunami.”
If he didn’t laugh at that one, I figure he’s a lost cause. LOL.
Bradley asked me again about Davey.
I said, “Why do you want to know?”
“I just figured it might help if
you talked about it,” he said.
I told Bradley Davey died in the tsunami. I figured that was the best way to get him to stop questioning me about him. Davey is the last thing I want to talk about with anybody.
Bradley looked surprised. I could tell he didn’t believe me.
“When did this happen?” he asked.
“I just said, in the tsunami.”
“How’d you find that out?” Bradley asked.
“My husband wrote me.”
Bradley frowned and didn’t say anything for a bit. Then he stood up and said, “Sorry for your loss.”
He walked out before I could respond.
I’d like to write more, but I have to go lie down. The Balloon Heads are calling out to me in my thoughts.
YSDW (your sleep-deprived wife),
Joy
August 12—10:40 p.m.
Joy,
I killed someone today. Well, two people actually.
I didn’t wake up this morning thinking “Maybe I’ll kill someone today,” but it happened regardless. I really didn’t want to do it. But I had no choice.
Why am I begging for you to understand? You’re the one who warned me in the first place. Not to trust anyone. And you were right.
Remember those three kids I mentioned before? They were wandering around the neighborhood one day and I came upon them. I really thought they were going to attack me that day, but they told me I was wrong. They were just in the same situation I was and they were wondering if I could spare some food. So I helped them out. Once they got some food in their bellies, any perceived threat on my part seemed to melt away. I figured I was just being paranoid, things the way they are and all.
Well, the more I thought about what you said, the more I wondered if I could really trust them, and I hid. They must have gotten tired of looking for me, because they left the next day, and I didn’t see them for a while.
But they came back last night. I have a sneaky suspicion they were never too far away. That they’ve been watching me all this time.
I was asleep in that bed in Melissa Vacro’s house—I told you all about that—when I heard some noise coming from downstairs. Things were getting smashed. Someone was wrecking the place. I remembered I’d seen an aluminum baseball bat in the boy’s room, so I went and got that, and I carefully made my way downstairs.
They seemed like they were waiting for me to show up. Thomas, the one with the big teeth and the buggy eyes, he had a knife and came at me with it. I smashed his head in with the bat. I was surprised how easily his head caved in. I just hit his skull like it was a baseball, and his brains just sprayed all over the wall. Like his head was an egg and I’d cracked it apart without even trying. His bloated eyes were on the carpet. The other guy, Chet, tried to grab me from behind. But I kicked him in the kneecap, hard, with my good foot, and he dropped. I kicked him in the head with my swollen foot, over and over, until he stopped trying to get up. Just to be safe, I finished him off with the bat, too. It all happened so fast that I didn’t have a chance to even think about what I was doing until they were both dead.
The girl, Katie, was in the corner, looking horrified. With that oversized hand of hers, she couldn’t be much help to them. She had a knife from the kitchen in her other hand, the normal one, and she was waving it around as I approached her. But I swung the bat and slammed her hand, and she dropped the knife.
She started crying then.
I came so close to crushing her head, too. It was like I was caught up in the killing and I wanted it to go on and on. I didn’t want it to end. But she raised her swollen hand up off the ground, with a lot of effort, and waved it in front of me. To stop.
She begged me not to kill her. It felt good.
I found some rope and I tied her up to a chair in the kitchen. But I had no idea what to do with her. I had no desire to let her go, but I didn’t really want to kill her, either. Once the adrenaline decreased in my bloodstream, I wasn’t as quick to violence as I first was.
I think I might just leave her here to starve, tied to that chair, when I go.
It’s times like this, I wish you were here. You would know what to do in this situation. But I teeter-totter between ending her life and doing nothing. It’s always one extreme or the other. I’m just not good at balancing things out sometimes. But I’ve never killed someone before, either.
She seems so scared, after what she saw me do to Thomas and Chet. And in some way, I really like seeing that fear in her eyes. Because I know they thought I would be easy prey when they came back, and it makes me happy that they were wrong. That they weren’t as tough as they thought they were.
She’s tied up tight, and I’m tired. I think I might go upstairs and go back to sleep. She can’t hurt me now. In the back of my mind, I wonder if there are more of them. If the three I saw were just the first wave of them. But I really don’t think they had any other allies with them. Katie just seems too scared. Like she knows there’s no one to save her.
I have no idea when you’ll be writing back, so sleep is probably my best option now. I’ll check email again in the morning. Let me know what you would do in this situation. I think that might be helpful.
Aaron
August 13—3:18 a.m.
Aaron,
Those guys would have killed you if you didn’t kill them first. You did the right thing. You think the thing with the girl is trickier because she seems defenseless and vulnerable. But the number one rule is survival. I know that sounds like a line from a cheesy novel, but isn’t it true?
This sounds awful, but I was thinking, as I read your email, “Kill that bitch!” How do you know there isn’t a whole gang of them out there and, if you let her go, she’ll go and tell them about you?
Remember when we had that ant problem a few years back? They were all over the house, crawling on the walls and the kitchen counters, in the bathroom and on our arms. I remember going on websites to find out how to get rid of them and I swear I remember reading somewhere that if you squashed an ant, its body would release a signal that would attract other ants. It sounded weird, but after that I couldn’t crush ants anymore. I just set out bait traps or flushed them down the toilet because I was so afraid of that chemical being released.
I don’t know why your story reminded me of the dead ants. But it came into my mind after reading your email. Get out of that house. Go live somewhere else. I just keep thinking about ants sending out scouts to search for prime locations. That house definitely sounds like a prime location. I hate to tell you to move, but I feel like I have to. Put a plastic bag over that girl’s head or drown her in the tub. I don’t care how you do it, just get rid of her.
I wouldn’t hesitate to kill the people I’m with, but it wouldn’t get me anywhere here. It’s a different world now. We don’t know how to live anymore. We have to make it up as we go along. It might be years before we find out if what we’ve done is right.
I guess in some ways, I’m safer than you in my little prison. But you’re free so you tell me which is better? Freedom or safety? The things you tell me scare me. It makes me afraid of the outside world. It actually made me feel good to be wiping a Balloon Head’s butt tonight. I thought, “As long as I do this, they won’t kill me.”
The Balloon Heads communicate with one another. I’m sure of it. I don’t know if it’s through those chirp noises or if they speak to each other’s minds like they do with us. Everything is too coordinated. I can feel them watching me, despite their huge heads that droop down toward the floor and their vacant eyes that never look directly at you. I wheel Balloon Heads to and from one another. Something in my mind will tell me to put Woody next to Triple Burger. I watch, but they don’t move. They don’t chirp more than once or twice a half hour, so I don’t know why they need to be next to each other. After a while, I’ll get another signal to wheel the other away. But I can’t get a clue to what went on. Their dead-looking faces are inscrutable.
SSS (Survive, survive, survive),
Joy
August 13—5:22 p.m.
Joy,
I don’t know what got into me today.
I woke up and came downstairs and Katie was still tied to the chair. She was already awake and immediately started begging me to let her go. I just ignored her and went about looking for food. I found some cans of chili. Well, it tasted like chili. Better than nothing, I guess. The electricity was working—these things are always tough to predict—and I could cook on the electric stove. I even put some in a bowl for her.
I brought the bowl over, intent on feeding her. I don’t know why. I’d debated releasing her arms so she could eat, and decided against it. So I figured it was just easiest to feed her myself. So I put the bowl in front of her face and start trying to spoon it into her mouth, when she spits it out and starts violently rocking from side to side, trying to topple the chair over. I reached out to steady the chair, and I saw she’d gotten one of her arms free, the one with the giant hand, and she tried to grab me. But the hand’s so big, she could barely lift it, and she had a hard time getting it to respond the way she wanted it to.
So I saw this big hand reaching for me, and I reacted on impulse, without even thinking, and I punched her right in the face. It was so sudden, and so hard, it knocked her out. But I felt pretty awful afterward. I’d never hit a woman before. It just didn’t feel right at all.
After that, I ate my bowl of chili. I was so hungry, I ended up eating hers, too. I figured she didn’t deserve food the way she was acting. I watched her while I ate, and when I was done, I went to the cupboard and got this big cleaver. Nice, sharp piece of cutlery.
And then I took her clothes off. I know what you’re thinking, but I wasn’t going to do anything to her. I swear it. If I did, would I be telling you about this? I just wanted to see what her body looked like. How much she’d changed. I mentioned I watched them go at it before, and I was curious about seeing her up close. There were a lot of strange growths on her skin. Weird wounds that looked like they’d never heal. Her breasts were large and lumpy, the nipples cracked. It was repulsive, actually. It was strange, examining her while she sat their unconscious. It made me feel dirty.
GREEN TSUNAMI Page 4